We are Babbling Vagabonds, a theatre company who love stories.
Telling old tales or creating new, from gruesome and gory to magical and marvellous.
Presenting them in wonderful places – sometimes indoors and sometimes out, to small groups or auditoriums.
We are a small charity based in Buxton, in Derbyshire.
Brief History
We are a theatre company that specialises in creating original theatre shows for children, young people, and their families. We have been creating award-winning theatre shows since 2000. Our work has been performed in schools, community spaces, outdoor places, and theatre venues throughout the country to audiences in excess of 150,000.
We devise our work. This means that we create all our productions and projects from scratch. We approach each project as artists and scientists; with open minds. Searching for the sparks of excitement and inspiration to guide our path. We set off on each creative endeavour with a sense of adventure, without a firm picture of what the end result will look like. The journey in our theatre-making will help sculpt, shape, and inform the final event, whatever that may be. We aim to create work that is rooted in story; that is exciting, fun, engaging, thought provoking, and magical.
Our shows incorporate storytelling, puppetry, shadow play, mask, clowning, music, animation, fire-sculpture, street theatre, circus, and comedy.
Alongside our productions we also develop and deliver bespoke arts projects. From concept through to delivery we facilitate events, workshop programs, celebrations, training and artistic residencies.
Using our theatre making skills we have over two decades of experience delivering and/or stage managing theatre arts projects in schools, communities, libraries, organisations, and business environments.
Babbling Vagabonds was founded by Mark Hornsey, Phil Coggins, and Tara Saunders. These three theatremakers undertake the artistic direction and management of all Babbling Vagabonds productions and events. They regularly collaborate with other artists on a project by project basis.
